If health insurance companies announce big premium increases on policies for 2015, I hope regulators, lawmakers and the media will look closely at whether they are justified, especially in light of recent disclosures of better-than-expected profits in 2013, rosy outlooks for the rest of this year and soaring CEO compensation.<\/p>\n
Almost all of the publicly traded health insurers reported big increases in revenue and profits last year. The big winners have been the top executives of those companies, led by Mark Bertolini, CEO of Aetna, the nation\u2019s third largest health insurer. Bertolini\u2019s total compensation of $30.7 million in 2013 was 131 percent higher than in 2012.<\/p>\n
If the stock prices of these firms keep growing at the current pace, Bertolini and his peers can expect to be rewarded even more handsomely this year, especially if they can hike premiums high enough to satisfy shareholders.<\/p>\n
According to Health Plan Week<\/em>, a trade publication, the CEOs of the 11 largest for-profit companies were rewarded with compensation packages last year totaling more than $125 million.<\/p>\n Over the past several weeks, several of them have told shareholders and Wall Street financial analysts that their companies likely will have higher profits at the end of this year than they expected, despite having to pay more medical claims as a result of the new Obamacare customers they picked up.<\/p>\n Those announcements have been music to the ears of shareholders, who are considerably wealthier today than they were this time last year.<\/p>\n Of those 11 companies (Aetna, Centene, Cigna, Health Net, Humana, Molina, Triple-S Management Corp., UnitedHealth Group, Universal American, Wellcare, and WellPoint) nine saw their stocks close near 52-week highs this past Friday.<\/p>\n The biggest gainer has been Humana, one of the largest operators of Medicare Advantage plans, whose share price has increased more than 53 percent over the past year.<\/p>\n The increases have been equally impressive at most of the other big companies. Aetna\u2019s share price is up 31 percent, Cigna\u2019s 32 percent. United\u2019s is up 28 percent. And WellPoint\u2019s is up 39 percent.<\/p>\n But it is the CEO compensation that has been the most eye-popping, especially at two of the publicly traded companies that specialize in managing Medicaid enrollees in several states: Centene and Molina.<\/p>\n Centene\u2019s CEO Micheal Neidorff saw his compensation increase 71 percent last year, from $8.5 million to $14.5 million. Even more impressive was the 140 percent raise Molina\u2019s J. Mario Molina got. His compensation jumped from $4.95 million in 2012 to $11.9 million in 2013.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n <\/p>\n The question we continue to ask is: Should the salaries of CEOs in publicly-held companies be capped? \u00a0Would this help inequality?<\/p>\n The Center for Public Integrity reports: If health insurance companies announce big premium increases on policies for 2015, I hope regulators, lawmakers and the media will look closely at whether they are justified, especially in light of recent disclosures of … Continue reading ![\"Executive](\"http:\/\/www.w-t-w.org\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/Executive-Pay.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"